June 5th Oklahoma City
Book signing for the book: Oklahoma City Music -Deep Deuce and Beyond
I mention this because in downtown Oklahoma City there is a neighborhood off 2nd street—thus the nickname Deuce–and later Deep Deuce– a portion of the city’s history, rooted in Jazz and Blues took place. The event itself is a book signing and a celebration of the history of Charlie Christian a well known guitarist from the area. Again—-this is another piece of history that those with strong ties to Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, the African American experience in Oklahoma City—will want to remember. I was surprised when I obtained my father’s birth certificate. For a brief period my grandparents lived in Oklahoma City–and where did they live—in the Deep Deuce area! Deep 2nd now Deep Deuce was one on of the largest African American neighborhoods in Oklahoma City. It was also home to Charlie Christian, Jimmy Rushing, and the community was also spoken about in the one of books by Ralph Ellison.

Best wishes for a great trip next week, for everyone attending the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree. This is one of the “Big Three” genealogy events in the country, and I am looking forward to reading the blogs and tweets coming from Burbank next week. So if you are attending, please share your thoughts and images with the rest of the country by talking about it on your websites.

June 11-18 Samford Genealogy Institute
Next weekend, about 300 folks will be traveling to Alabama to attend Samford Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research. This will be a full week of genealogy lectures, and I am hearing from several researchers I know who plan to attend. I am looking forward to the sessions and hope to learn a lot. I shall be talking about my experiences while there, and I shall be tweeting from there, as well.

You know—a great deal of what we as genealogists do is preservation, and I wanted to mention that today, because as those who are asking questions and documenting the answers–we are preserving our family’s history. There are many of us, who surprisingly find ourselves doing everything from working to restore abandoned cemeteries, to preserving old photos, to locating and preserving documents, artifacts and so much more.

As preservationists—we need to consider ourselves among those who do this for a living and we need to look into the kind of advice that is offered by preservationists. Now I mentioned the event taking place in Okmulgee Oklahoma, June 9-11—-a statewide preservation conference. This will take place next week in Okmulgee Oklahoma, and this conference looks quite exciting. They have speakers from all over the country—Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Iowa, and so much more. I only became aware of this event in the past 2 weeks, but this is the kind of event that I actually hope to be able to attend in the future. So much of what we do is preservation and beyond the genealogy conferences that we attend—we do need to understand that what we do crosses other disciplines, and we can learn from those who are masters in those fields.

Now—in case you are wondering what all of this has to do with genealogy—well it has everything to do with what we do. We do more than collect names and hang pictures or charts on the wall. We tell the stories—and part of those stories involve the places where our families lives.

There are those occasions that we might feel that we get side tracked. But sometimes we are getting involved more actively in preservation. There is a researcher whom I have met here in Baltimore who is working so hard to preserve the oldest and largest African American cemetery in the city. This burial ground has falled into a very sad state of neglect and this woman–who began her work documenting her family is now very much involved in the effort to restore this burial ground into a place of honor. Has she been side-tracked? Not at all. She sees a need, is responding to that need and she might be able to bring about change that will effect not only the burial ground of her ancestors but of thousands of families. She has become an activist—and she followed where the research took her.

This is the lesson that we all learn from what we do. We must followed the lead—that sometimes come to us from our genealogical work. These are not distractions, in fact they are enhancements to what we do, and for some of us–these efforts help us in finding our voice.

Well, before leaving I have to share some Juneteenth links for you as this is a nationwide celebration. Wherever you live, I hope you will be able to participate somewhere and join the spirit of Juneteenth.